Improve Your Contact Form with the Power of Google Maps

Looking to make your website’s contact form more efficient? Consider adding a Google Map to simplify the process for users to input their address and share their location. This article will guide you on how to seamlessly embed a Google Map in your contact forms, resulting in a significantly enhanced user experience and increased form completion rates.

The Importance of Embedding a Google Map in Your Contact Form

A contact form serves as an easily accessible means for visitors to get in touch with you when they visit your website. If your business has a physical location, embedding a Google Map in your form can be an effective way to encourage people to pay you a visit.

By leveraging geolocation, you can automatically populate the address field on your contact form and showcase the user’s location on a map. This not only enhances user experience but also helps decrease the likelihood of form abandonment.

Knowing the precise location of your users also opens doors for targeted personalized content and increased conversion rates. Now, let’s dive into how you can seamlessly embed a Google Map in your contact forms.

Step 1: Install and Activate the WPForms Plugin

To get started, install and activate the WPForms plugin. WPForms is a premium contact form plugin for WordPress that offers a user-friendly drag-and-drop form builder. While the free version of WPForms is great for creating basic contact forms, for this tutorial, we will be using WPForms Pro, which includes the Google Map addon.

Step 2: Configure the WPForms Geolocation Addon

Once WPForms is installed and activated, head over to WPForms » Addons to locate the Geolocation addon. Install the addon, and then navigate to WPForms » Settings » Geolocation to configure its settings.

Select a geolocation provider, such as the Google Places API, and enable the ‘Current Location’ checkbox. This feature will automatically detect and fill in the address when users complete the contact form, ultimately saving time and ensuring accuracy.

To enable the Google Places API, you will need to generate a Google API key, which we will accomplish in the next step.

Step 3: Generate a Google Places API Key

In order to generate a Google Places API key, go to the Google Cloud Console website and follow these steps:

1. Select your country and agree to the terms of service.
2. Choose or create a project for the API key.
3. Enable the Places API, Maps JavaScript API, and Geocoding API in the API Library.
4. Create an API key and restrict its usage to your website.

Make sure to copy the API key as it will be needed in the next step.

Step 4: Add the API Key to WPForms Settings

Return to your WordPress dashboard, go to WPForms » Settings » Geolocation, and paste the Google API key into the provided field. Save your settings to activate the API key.

Step 5: Create a Contact Form with an Embedded Google Map

Now that both WPForms and Google Places are configured, you can proceed to create a contact form in WordPress. Add an address field to your form by using either an Address block or a Single Line Text field.

Customize the field’s label and enable the ‘Enable Address Autocomplete’ and ‘Display Map’ options in the field settings. Choose whether you want to display the map above or below the field.

Step 6: Embed the Contact Form on Your Website

To add the contact form to your website, click the ‘Embed’ button and decide whether you want to add it to an existing page or create a new one. Provide a name for the page and click ‘Let’s Go!’ to automatically add the form and create the page.

Step 7: Viewing the Google Map in the Contact Form

When a user visits your contact form, they will be prompted to grant your website access to their location. Once permission is granted, their current location will automatically be entered into the address field, and a pin will appear on the map.

Users have the ability to modify the address or drag the pin to a different location on the map. WPForms also records each user’s location, which can be viewed in the WPForms entries section.

In Conclusion

By embedding a Google Map in your contact form, you can significantly enhance user experience, increase form completion rates, and personalize your content. Thanks to WPForms and the Google Map addon, implementing this handy feature on your WordPress website is a straightforward process.

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